Web-conversion machines are used in the printing industry to assist in converting webs into final printed products. For example, large combination folders may collect an amount of printed material to produce an intermediate product, a portion of a final printed product. To generate these intermediate products, ribbons may be cut, longitudinally folded, half-folded and quarter-folded.
A Goss PCF-3 may produce intermediate products, or signatures, of up to 96 pages. More typically, the Goss PCF-3 produces 32-page or 64-page signatures. The signatures will later be combined in a bindery to generate a final printed product.
Conventional folders may be limited in the thickness of intermediate products that the folders may produce. Also, folders generally may only produce intermediate products having a single cutoff.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,598 discloses a stacking mechanism and method that brings batches of articles from a shingled formation on a conveyor to a vertically stacked formation without stopping the progress of any of them. Shingled articles are pushed forward from behind by a pusher at a speed greater than that of a conveyor on which they are supported while at the same time a slower-moving obstruction is erected in their path offering a vertical rear wall. The articles successively align against the rear wall of the obstruction until when the longitudinal distance between the pusher and the obstruction has become substantially the same as the length of the articles, so that all of a batch of shingled articles must have been stacked, the obstruction is withdrawn and the stack is driven on by the pusher.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,132 discloses a collating and stitching machine to arrange into informative and significant order a plurality of part-product or sheets. The machine has at least two rotating sheet delivery drums, the axis of rotation of which extend substantially perpendicularly to the conveying direction of an endless conveyor. The endless conveyor transports the folded sheets during the collating thereof with their folded backs extending transversely to the conveying direction and with the folded backs leading the direction of movement. The conveyor inserts the sheets one into the other. At least one stitching head is arranged in the return area to the endless conveyor to stitch the sheets together and thereby form a booklet, a magazine or the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,041,975 discloses a signature delivery apparatus including a mechanism for diverting signatures into a first series of serially arranged dual conveyors or a second series of serially arranged conveyors. Each of the series of serially arranged conveyors are substantially identical in construction. The first series includes an assembly of opposed conveyor belts which engage the leading edge of each signature and reduces the speed of the signatures. Subsequently, the signature passes into an adjacent series of opposed conveyor belts where the signature is overlapped with the next succeeding signature and the speed of the signatures is reduced further.